TOKYO — (BUSINESS WIRE) — June 27, 2017 —
Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) and Toshiba Memory Corporation (“TMC”)
today filed a petition with the Tokyo District Court against Western
Digital Corporation, a U.S. company, and its subsidiary Western Digital
Technologies, Inc. (collectively, “WD”) (NASDAQ:
WDC), seeking a
provisional disposition order for an injunction against acts of unfair
competition, and also brought suit for a permanent injunction, damages
and payment of 120 billion yen, alleging violation of the Unfair
Competition Prevention Act, among other things.

The lawsuit states, as detailed in Toshiba’s June 2, 2017 press release,
“Update on Status of Third-party Investment in the Memory Business,”
that WD has continually interfered with the bid process related to the
sale of TMC.

Citing joint venture agreements between Toshiba and SanDisk LLC
(including its affiliates, “SanDisk”), the lawsuit also says that WD has
exaggerated its consent right – in both public statements and private
communications to bidders and others involved in the sale process – in
order to interfere with the sale of TMC which does not hold the
ownership interests in joint venture companies co-owned with SanDisk.
The complaint goes on to state that proceeding with the sales process
for TMC does not violate any consent rights held by WD; WD’s claims are
false, designed only to interfere with the sale process, and have
damaged Toshiba and TMC.

Toshiba and TMC have filed litigation in Japan because WD has improperly
obtained Toshiba and TMC’s trade secrets by transferring employees of
SanDisk to WD who have access to confidential information of Toshiba and
TMC through their participation in the collaboration between SanDisk and
Toshiba/TMC.

Toshiba considers that WD’s actions are damaging to both Toshiba and
TMC, violate the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (Article 2(1) (iv),
(vii), (viii), (xv)), and are tortious acts under the Civil Code
(Article 709). Toshiba and TMC have filed the petition for a provisional
disposition order seeking an injunction to put an end to WD’s damaging
actions, and a suit seeking permanent injunction and damages.

In addition to intentionally interfering with the TMC sale process via
its false claims, the suit says that Toshiba did not object to WD access
to information related to the joint venture and development under the
assumption that WD will be entering into a contract in respect of
information access, however WD had rejected to such contract.
Accordingly, to prevent further damage to TMC, TMC believes it has no
choice but to block WD’s ability to access such information, starting
today.

About Toshiba

Founded in Tokyo in 1875, Toshiba Corporation is a Fortune Global 500
company that contributes to a better world and better lives with
innovative technologies in Energy, Infrastructure and Storage. Guided by
the philosophy of “Committed to People, Committed to the Future,”
Toshiba promotes operations through a global network of 551 consolidated
companies employing 188,000 people, with annual sales surpassing 5.6
trillion yen (US$50 billion; March 31, 2016).